We all loved him too well to think it _possible_
that he could have betrayed us. So we rolled the guilt on other
shoulders.
We were literally dragged, that morning, behind horses, a
distance of fifteen miles, and placed in the Easton jail. We
were glad to reach the end of our journey, for our pathway had
been the scene of insult and mortification. Such is the power of
public <230>opinion, that it is hard, even for the innocent, to
feel the happy consolations of innocence, when they fall under
the maledictions of this power. How could we regard ourselves as
in the right, when all about us denounced us as criminals, and
had the power and the disposition to treat us as such.
In jail, we were placed under the care of Mr. Joseph Graham, the
sheriff of the county. Henry, and John, and myself, were placed
in one room, and Henry Baily and Charles Roberts, in another, by
themselves. This separation was intended to deprive us of the
advantage of concert, and to prevent trouble in jail.
Once shut up, a new set of tormentors came upon us. A swarm of
imps, in human shape the slave-traders, deputy slave-traders, and
agents of slave-traders--that gather in every country town of the
state, watching for chances to buy human flesh (as buzzards to
eat carrion) flocked in upon us, to ascertain if our masters had
placed us in jail to be sold.
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